4 ms·

The manuscript of Prelude and Fugue 1[0] is still readable almost 300 years later, goes to show how stable Western musical notation has been. Even the crossed o

The manuscript of Prelude and Fugue 1[0] is still readable almost 300 years later, goes to show how stable Western musical notation has been. Even the crossed out sections still sound fine when sight-read, but he obviously wasn't satisfied with them. [0] https://blogs.bl.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef02b7519f7c1f200c-pi https://blogs.bl.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef02b7519f7c1f200c-pi

kashunstva 3y ago
It’s quite remarkable indeed how legible Bach’s hand is. Compare that to Beethoven’s horrific scrawl e.g.[1] Small wonder his correspondence is filled with fights with copyists and publishers over their accuracy. [1]: https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/5/5f/IMSLP51285-PMLP11572-Op.98_Manuscript.pdf https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/5/5f/IMSLP5128...
- perihelions 3y ago
  That's also because he's just violently unconventional with chromaticism. There's places in late Beethoven where Urtext editors aren't sure what a specific note/accidental was intended to be: they show possibilities option A and option B (from two sources – one of which was a misprint), and even having both, the editors are undecided which one was actually the mistake. And if you study the music very carefully and think for a long time, you won't be sure either.
perihelions 3y ago
For anyone who's confused, it looks like the 5th line on the left page (measure 14) jumps to the 6th line on the right page — the pair of matching "◬" symbols. And that continues to the bottom, then jumps back to the top of that same (right) page. Also, it looks like he's freely split– –ting measures across lines: where he finds extra horizontal space in a line, he puts a fragment of a measure there, rather than waste that space. Was paper expensive?
- chubbnix 3y ago
  The article mentioned how he intentionally crammed together everything to fit on a single unfolded page so they would not need to flip the page over. This article suggests the paper may have been free for Bach though, but I suppose that doesn't account for his time spent writing or rewriting his works. https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/BachPaperSize.pdf https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/BachPaperSize.pdf
  - siraben 3y ago
    This was fascinating: And what about all the candles used to illuminate the parts? Not a single drop of tallow or candle wax or darkening due to the close proximity of a candle has been detected or reported regarding Bach’s original parts. Touching the parts while carrying them or turning pages would tend to leave traces, but these are not in evidence. Eventually these copies of the original parts would be collected and deliberately destroyed by Bach so that they could not be used to reconstruct the cantata.
    - henryrp 3y ago
      Another aspect of all old performance materials is the utter absence of rehearsal letters ("A", "B", "C" etc.), measure numbers, little eye-glasses ("watch the first chair here"), bowings, fingerings and all the other things contemporary classical musicians need to put into their parts during rehearsal. It really makes you wonder what a rehearsal in the 18th century could possibly have been like. And yes, I'm pretty sure Bach saved as much paper as he could. The autograph score to the Christmas Oratorio uses spare staves all over the place. This is not a page-turning consideration. An aria may coexist side-by-side with a chorus for many pages at a time to evidently prevent those 2-3 staves at the bottom of the page from being wasted.

kashunstva 3y ago

It’s quite remarkable indeed how legible Bach’s hand is. Compare that to Beethoven’s horrific scrawl e.g.[1] Small wonder his correspondence is filled with fights with copyists and publishers over their accuracy. [1]: https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/5/5f/IMSLP51285-PMLP11572-Op.98_Manuscript.pdf https://vmirror.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/5/5f/IMSLP5128...

perihelions 3y ago
That's also because he's just violently unconventional with chromaticism. There's places in late Beethoven where Urtext editors aren't sure what a specific note/accidental was intended to be: they show possibilities option A and option B (from two sources – one of which was a misprint), and even having both, the editors are undecided which one was actually the mistake. And if you study the music very carefully and think for a long time, you won't be sure either.

perihelions 3y ago

For anyone who's confused, it looks like the 5th line on the left page (measure 14) jumps to the 6th line on the right page — the pair of matching "◬" symbols. And that continues to the bottom, then jumps back to the top of that same (right) page. Also, it looks like he's freely split– –ting measures across lines: where he finds extra horizontal space in a line, he puts a fragment of a measure there, rather than waste that space. Was paper expensive?

chubbnix 3y ago
The article mentioned how he intentionally crammed together everything to fit on a single unfolded page so they would not need to flip the page over. This article suggests the paper may have been free for Bach though, but I suppose that doesn't account for his time spent writing or rewriting his works. https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/BachPaperSize.pdf https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Articles/BachPaperSize.pdf
- siraben 3y ago
  This was fascinating: And what about all the candles used to illuminate the parts? Not a single drop of tallow or candle wax or darkening due to the close proximity of a candle has been detected or reported regarding Bach’s original parts. Touching the parts while carrying them or turning pages would tend to leave traces, but these are not in evidence. Eventually these copies of the original parts would be collected and deliberately destroyed by Bach so that they could not be used to reconstruct the cantata.
  - henryrp 3y ago
    Another aspect of all old performance materials is the utter absence of rehearsal letters ("A", "B", "C" etc.), measure numbers, little eye-glasses ("watch the first chair here"), bowings, fingerings and all the other things contemporary classical musicians need to put into their parts during rehearsal. It really makes you wonder what a rehearsal in the 18th century could possibly have been like. And yes, I'm pretty sure Bach saved as much paper as he could. The autograph score to the Christmas Oratorio uses spare staves all over the place. This is not a page-turning consideration. An aria may coexist side-by-side with a chorus for many pages at a time to evidently prevent those 2-3 staves at the bottom of the page from being wasted.